By Product
by Gaia Faye
Summary: Even if you survive, the ending isn't necessarily happy. Post SH4 Escape ending. Eileen x Henry.
1. Part 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Silent Hill. And just 'cause I'm lazy, this applies to the other three parts also.

**Author's Note:** And so I take a break from Impaired to bring you this little ditty, of Henry/Eileen orientation, that I've been dabbling with for a couple weeks now. Read on. And please review.

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**_By-Product_**

_Part 1_

Eileen always checked the peephole before she opened the door now. Even in the daylight, even when she was expecting someone, even though her new apartment was in a sunny suburb many, _many_ miles away from her old one.

Before her near-fatal beating, she had always been the trusting type, always felt like she could depend on other people. Her mother had said that her attitude would get her in trouble. And she had been right. Eileen had a bit more of her fair share of friends taking advantage of her and guys breaking her heart. But although it hurt, on a different level it was nice to feel like anyone was a potential friend.

But now Eileen always glanced twice at strangers. She felt vulnerable if anyone glanced at her. If anyone she didn't know said one word to her she would immediately put herself on the defensive. She hadn't been to a party or a club; eventually the friends she had left behind in South Ashfield stopped inviting her.

And she always-- always-- checked the peephole.

She hated it. She was used to feeling up, out in the sun, not willfully stuck under some cramped rock. She knew her personality swing was only natural, but four months was enough. She hoped it wouldn't last forever.

Not like Henry's affliction.

And it was Henry she spotted through the peephole on this rainy evening.

She and Henry had gone apartment hunting together after their ordeal and this complex had been in both their price ranges. Part of the reason Eileen liked it was because it was so different from the Heights. Besides not being located in a city, Oak Shade Apartments were each accessible from the outside, with cobblestones leading to each door from the main walkway. The neighbors were more open and friendly, and even though some had kids who could be rowdy, Eileen was never wary of them trying to mug her or any such thing.

But what Eileen honestly liked the most was that Henry lived in the apartment right across from her. Just knowing that he was near made her feel more comfortable and safe, even more so than the fact that the town police station was only a few blocks away. She could never forget how calm he had been that night, how he had stayed with her and saved her in the end. She, unfortunately, had met many other guys in her life who would have abandoned her because she slowed them down. Not Henry. Just thinking of him put a smile on her face.

But seeing him now worried her. It wouldn't have been strange to see him splotched with rain from coming over to her home from his, but he was drenched, like he had been standing in the shower. Eileen opened the door and pulled him inside.

"Jesus, Henry!" she exclaimed, leaving him in the small living room while she hurried up the narrow stairs to the bathroom. She got a towel from the closet and came back down. "What were you doing?" she asked, throwing the towel over his head. It was while she was drying his hair that she noticed the look on his face. She let go of the towel and sighed. "Again?"

He failed in an attempt to smile and pulled the terrycloth off his head. "Yeah," he said quietly, wiping water from his face.

"And you're soaked!" Eileen said with exasperation. "Why?"

"I was hoping the rain would clear my head."

"And?"

He chuckled wryly. "I'm wet and cold."

She tried to smile. "Sit down and tell me about it."

He glanced at the couch, then looked down at himself. He laughed again, brief and humorless, and said, "I'll get your furniture soaked."

She wagged a finger at him chidingly. "Then maybe you should've stayed out of the rain. Or at least changed before coming over."

"Yeah," he agreed sheepishly.

Before she knew it, more words spilled from her mouth. "If I still had some of your clothes over here, you could change into them." There was an instant where she and Henry stared at each other and she felt her eyes unmistakably widen. Unable to brush it off now, she excused herself and retreated to the kitchen to clean up her dishes from dinner.

It was awkward while she put her plate, fork, and knife in the dishwasher and searched for the dishwashing liquid. Henry had moved to the doorway, but said nothing. Eileen stole a glance at him when she popped the top off the bottle. With his wet clothes clinging to him like that, his hair slicked over his face, and looking more than a little helpless, Henry was 'very pounce-able,' as one of her friends would say. But Eileen berated herself as she squeezed the liquid in the compartment. Henry didn't need any of that right now.

She still wanted to him to talk to her about what had him standing in the rain, but not in her apartment. Or his. She closed the dishwasher, switched it on normal wash, then turned it on. Turning to Henry, she coughed nervously, then forced energy into her voice and asked, "Hey, you wanna come shopping with me?"

Having become lost in thought, Henry snapped back to attention. "I'm sorry?"

"I need to buy a new picture frame. You wanna come with me?"

"Okay." He took a step towards the door. "I gotta change first. I'll be just a minute."

She nodded. "I'll be at the front with my car in five, alright?"

"Alright." A dozen footsteps later, and the front door closed.

Eileen moved back into the living room. Henry had left the towel on one of the side tables. She picked it up, stroked the damp softness with her hands.

What a joke. She could tolerate a relationship with a total asshole for a year. But with the guy who had saved her life, she couldn't make a relationship work for more than a month.


	2. Part 2

**_By-Product_**

_Part 2_

"So," Eileen said as she pulled away from the curb, "tell me."

Henry had just clicked in his seat belt. He had changed into jeans and a long-sleeved gray shirt, which were mostly dry, only spotted with rain from him running over to her car without an umbrella. He looked up at her, and out of the corner of her eye she could see him frown. "I… I don't want to talk about it."

Eileen blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Oh yes, you do," she replied. "You know it helps."

"Eileen--"

"And you know I'm just gonna bug the shit out of you until you tell me."

He laughed, a real laugh. "That's true."

"Spill it."

His smile receded. He folded his arms and stared at the glove compartment. "I was just watching TV, and, you know, the headache started." He closed his eyes. "I always hope it's a normal freakin' headache. I don't get normal headaches anymore."

"What did you see this time?"

"This woman standing on a sidewalk. She's crying."

"Do you know her?"

Henry shook his head. "It's a woman I've never seen before. She's old. She's wearing a pink dress."

"What happens to her?"

Henry shifted in his seat. "She just cries for a while. Then she steps off the curb." He didn't say anything more.

Eileen finished for him. "She gets hit by a car."

He nodded.

"Accident?"

"Suicide, I'm pretty sure."

Eileen opened and closed her hands around the steering wheel.

Henry opened his eyes. "This is going to drive me crazy, eventually."

"Could be worse," Eileen said, trying to be casual, trying to not to make Henry feel any more awkward than he had to about having visions of death. "When this first started, you were getting them all the time."

"Yeah."

"Have you talked to Deena lately?"

Deena, a woman between Eileen's and Henry's ages who owned a small, eccentric shop downtown in the nearby city. When Henry had started getting his headaches again, with disturbing visuals, he and Eileen had gone on a small quest to find someone who could help him. Both would admit that the woman had scared them at first, but now they found her merely odd. She had been able to help Henry, at any rate, by teaching him some concentration techniques to control his problem.

"No," Henry sighed. "I don't think she can do any more. She told me that I could never make them all go away." He let his head fall back onto the headrest. "No good deed goes unpunished, right?"

"Don't look at it like that. It's not like this is some kind of… revenge, or anything. It's… Did you ever see that movie, Stir of Echoes?"

"No."

"Well, there's a line in it and it basically talks about how during hypnotism, a switch was flipped in the lead character's head, and that's why he keeps seeing visions of this dead girl. So I think it's more like that. Your switch just got flipped when all that happened to us."

"Well, I wish I could flip it back off."

"Deena has to know someone."

"Deena knows lots of people. I happen to think that most of them are totally out of it."

"They are kind of strange, but I guess they have reason to be."

"Seriously, all that incense has messed up their brains."

"No offense," Eileen said, with a chuckle, "but maybe they used to be like you. Maybe you just haven't lost it yet."

"Please don't joke like that."

"Sorry," she said quickly. That had been one of the problems, hadn't it? She joked too much. He would get all serious and she would be uncomfortable and make some kind of humorous remark to loosen up. But then he would get offended, and then the argument would start.

She glanced over at Henry. Yeah, that was the problem. Even now, despite her apology, he had turned to look out the window, with his body turned ever so slightly towards the door. She knew that it wasn't funny, not in the least, but she didn't know any other way to react to it.

They reached the store, Roland's Crafts. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained cloudy. Eileen pulled into the parking lot, slipping into one of the many available spots. She parked the car and turned to him with a hopeful smile. "Well, personally, I've never had a problem a good shopping round couldn't cure."

He turned to her, and she was relieved to see a small smile. "Liar."

"Shut-up and come on."


	3. Part 3

**_By-Product_**

_Part 3_

To her left were bins of greenery bushes, and to her right was a small, narrow forest of artificial trees. She was considering making her own floral arrangement for her dinner table when there was a rustle behind her, and the unmistakable sense of someone watching her. Eileen gasped and spun around, gaze locking immediately on the sea-green eyes staring back at her.

"Hello, Clarice."

"Henry!" she cried out, reaching through the tangle of trees to thwap him with a bush of ivy. "You sonuva... Where were you off to?"

"The art supplies," Henry replied spookily with a soft, even tone, not breaking character.

She ignored his game. "Get anything?"

"No," he replied, reaching for her through the plastic branches and waggling his fingers. "It's all toooo expeeennsiiiivve…"

"What is wrong with you?"

He finally cracked a smile. "Physically, mentally, or emotionally?" His voice was normal.

He was being goofy as an apology for earlier. He didn't want her to be angry with him for getting short with her, even if she knew that he hated it when she joked when he was trying to be serious. And that was one of the things about him that drove her nuts, and not in the good way. Another reason that she, in the end, wanted to just be friends. But despite all this passing through her mind, Eileen only shook her head at him. "Just get yer butt over here."

Instead of walking down his aisle and around the trees, Henry crept through them instead. "Jungle in here," he commented, ducking under the leaves. He made it through and fingered the silk foliage. "Who buys a fake tree?"

"I dunno," Eileen said, stuffing the bush back into its bin.

"I don't even think real trees can survive in little baskets."

"That's why it has to be fake."

"Who's going to walk into someone's house and believe that this tree is real?"

"No one would believe it was real!"

"Then what's the point?"

Eileen shook her head at him again. "It's just to give a house some decoration or color."

"You're not gonna buy one of these, are you?"

She grinned at him. "You know, I just might."

"Traitor."

She laughed. "I'm done here," she said, gesturing to the picture frame in her basket. "Let's check out."

He nodded, and followed her to the front of the store. There was only one register open, and a small group of three women were already at the counter, so Henry and Eileen took their place in line behind them. They waited, browsing through the candy, magazines, and other impulse merchandise planted at the front of the store.

Eileen wouldn't have taken any special notice of the one woman if she hadn't noticed that Henry was staring at her. She had nudged him to point out the dollar bath soaps and ask if he also thought they would probably give someone a rash, but he didn't seem to be paying attention. She nudged him again, looking at him pointedly, but his focus remained straight ahead. Finally, her own gaze went to the woman.

Nothing special. She was old, past middle age, but not really elderly. Eileen would have placed her around fifty. Her grey hair was short and pulled up, and she wore a simple carnation-colored dress. She was accompanied by two other women about her age, one wearing what Eileen considered to be an atrocious purple hat, and the other carrying one of those large tote bags that looked like it was a wicker basket that had been smashed flat with a hammer. The three gabbed on about something or other. Eileen hadn't been listening to them long enough to discern exactly what, but it was apparently quite funny, as even the cashier's straight-lined mouth quirked up into a smile and the three women chortled--

"How can you just stand there and laugh?" Henry suddenly said.

The ladies were quiet and stared at him in surprise. Eileen did likewise. He sounded so angry. In fact, as she looked at him now, she finally noticed that his breathing, though steady, seemed deeper, heavier. His eyebrows were drawn together as he glared at the one woman, the one in the modest rose dress.

The one with the clashing hat finally spoke up. "I-I'm sorry, are you talking to--"

"Shut-up," Henry spat.

What the hell! Eileen grabbed Henry and shook him. "Henry! What's wrong with you?" She glanced over at the women, who gaped at him.

Henry brought a hand up to his face, pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He winced; an obvious headache. But he kept talking. "Jesus fucking Christ! After what you did, how can you just laugh!"

"Ex… excuse me…" the cashier tried to say. Eileen saw the girl's fingers resting on the phone by her register.

"He killed eighteen people!" Henry spat, glowering at the woman as if her was going to vomit. "You left him there and they got their hands on him and raised him and molded him into a murdering psychopath! Do you realize what you've done? What could have happened? All because you were young and _stupid_ and listened to that bastard and just _left_ your responsibility in some measly blanket on the floor to _die_! And here you are, years later, thinking that it doesn't matter anymore because you no longer have anything to do with him, because _you_ have a new life! Well, guess what, _Mommy_: nineteen people are _dead_ because you got knocked up and couldn't handle it!"

Very silent. And then Henry came back to himself, and the disgusted glare changed into a look of shocked horror as he raised his hand to his mouth. The woman stared back at him. Her face was drained of color and her hands were tightly wrung together.

Finally, Eileen just dropped her shopping basket-- the glass in the frame no doubt cracking-- and took hold of his arm, dragging him from the store. It briefly crossed her mind to throw back some sort of apology, but she quickly decided that nothing she could say in one moment would set the stunned women or the bewildered cashier at ease. She just pulled him out to the car and unlocked the door with the button on her keychain. "Get in."

Henry just stood there, with one hand over his eyes and the other hand planted on the roof of her sedan.

"Henry."

His shoulders got tenser and his fingers curved on top of the car.

Eileen pulled him away from the car and opened the door herself. She coaxed him into the seat. She closed the door, then glanced back at the store. She could see the women still inside; the one Henry had singled out just watched her while the other two talked rapidly to each other.

She moved around the car and got into the driver's seat.


	4. Part 4

**_By-Product_**

_Part 4_

Eileen didn't say anything until she heard Henry's breathing even out, until she saw his hands leave his head out of the corner of her eye. She glanced over once to see if he was okay. He was hunched over in his seat as she drove, hands curled over his knees and fingers digging into the denim.

"Put on your seatbelt," she ordered, returning her attention on the road. No sense in getting killed over this.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him look up and stare at her for a moment, then as if he'd finally understood what she had said, he stuttered, "O-oh, yeah." He pulled the belt across his chest and clipped it in place.

They traveled in silence through two red lights. Neither of them had any idea what to say.

"Alright, what the hell was that!" Eileen finally asked. Her voice was harsher than she would have liked, but he had really scared her back there. She'd never seen him so incensed.

"I… I don't know…" Henry choked out. "That… That's never happened before."

"What did you mean?" Eileen went on. "Everything you said… Was that woman…?"

A few moments of Henry just breathing hard, collecting his thoughts. "I think it was his mother. His real mother."

"How can you know that?"

"I don't know!"

"How can you not fucking know, Henry?" Eileen snapped.

"Look!" he shouted back. "I don't know how this works, okay? Don't start screaming at me! You're not the one with this… this… fucking 'switch' on in your head!"

"You scared the hell out of me!" she hollered. "You should have seen yourself in there!"

"Oh! Oh, I'm really sorry!" he growled sarcastically. "Did I embarrass you?"

"That's not what I meant and you goddamn well know it!"

"Then why are you scolding me as if I have any control over this shit in my head?" He laughed wryly. "Mother Reborn."

Eileen forced herself to not to reply. She clamped her mouth shut, breathed in deeply through her nose. She had to stop at a red light, so she took the opportunity to close her eyes for a moment and calm down. When she opened them again, she kept her gaze on the red light. "Look. We're both… We're both upset."

"I don't see why you're upset," he grumbled, ducking his head and holding a hand over his eyes.

"I'm upset because I'm worried about you," she said calmly. She heard him take in a deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh. "Henry?"

"Yeah?" he whispered.

"I'm sorry."

He didn't say anything for a moment. Then, "Yeah, me too."

The light was green, and she accelerated. "Do you think it means anything?"

He lowered his hand back into his lap and stared straight ahead. "I… I don't think so."

"It just freaks me out, is all," she said. "I mean, _his_ mother, of all people."

"Small world."

She couldn't help her short, weak laugh. "You really gave it to her."

She could see him turn his head toward her out of the corner of her eye. "… She probably deserved it."

Eileen frowned. "She was probably just a stupid kid."

"So?"

"Henry!"

"I'm just not feeling very sympathetic right now."

She could understand that, so she nodded. "But, jeez, his real freaking _mom_. Just, like… living all this time. I always thought she was… I don't know. I didn't think she was dead, but I never really thought of her as alive--"

"Eileen, could we please just… not talk about this?"

She was going to disagree, but then she realized that there was really nothing of importance to discuss. Only speculation could say that the appearance of the woman meant anything. But it was a fact that_ he_ was dead and gone, that she and Henry were safe. Talking about it would only remind them of everything they'd gone through, and at the moment, that was what neither of them needed.

So the rest of the trip home was spent in silence.

They arrived back at Oak Shade Apartments, and Eileen parked her car in the lot outside the building. Henry didn't need any help getting out of the car. They walked around the building and up the main walk in silence. She accompanied him to his door.

She told him to get to bed, to get some sleep, to use the pills if he had to. But she knew he wasn't listening; he was looking at her in that way. Then she was letting him kiss her, sincerely as he always did. She finally pressed her hands against his shoulders and gently pushed him away.

"Eileen," he said quietly before she could walk away or even turn around so she wouldn't have to look at him. "Eileen, I…"

"Henry, don't."

"I don't… I don't want to be alone tonight."

"Don't." Why couldn't he be a total jerk like every other guy in her life? This wouldn't be so hard.

"Eileen. What I said, I didn't mean it. Please. I love--"

"Henry, don't!" She broke eye contact, lowering her head and covering her face.

He put his hands on her shoulders, stroking her shoulder blades with his fingers. "I don't understand. I don't know why it wouldn't work, but if we try again--"

She shook her head, looked him in the eye again. "No. Henry… Henry, it's… It's just not there."

And she could see it there, plainly on his face, that she had crushed him. She couldn't bear it and threw herself into him, wrapping her arms around his back in a hopelessly apologetic embrace.

"Eileen…"

Eileen couldn't help it. She started to cry. Oh, God, _she_ was crying? She was such a selfish bitch. Here she was, breaking his heart again, and she had the gall to cry. "I'm sorry, Henry!" she bawled. "But I just can't be there for you like that! I do love you; you'll always be one of my dearest friends. I can _never_ do enough to repay everything you've done, but…" She caught her breath, held it in, let it out in a long stream. She swallowed hard, let go of his shirt and stepped away. "I just can't," she choked, turning away and looked down at the sidewalk.

Silence. Then Henry said something that was probably "okay" or "alright," but it didn't surface well over the lump in his throat. There was the sound of his door opening and closing. And not long after the rushed rhythm of running footsteps, there was the sound of her door opening and closing too.

That night on the eleven o-clock news there was a small bit about an elder woman. She had committed suicide by stepping into traffic just outside Roland's Crafts. And in an apartment complex in the suburbs, two people stood at their doors with their hands on the knobs, wondering if they should venture out to see each other.

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OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

It's weird not having little notes before and after every chapter. But I guess it's less reading interruption this way.

So this story came about because of three ideas I had. I wanted to do something where Henry and Eileen were just friends. But I also thought it would be interesting to have a story where they had dated, but broke up. And I always wondered what happened to Walter's mom, who you can see _very_ briefly when Henry gets those visions upon opening the box with the umbilical cord. So... um... yes, that's the origin of that.

As for a point... I'm not sure this story has one. Please review and gimme your opinion, dear reader.


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